Illinois State Representative Laura Fine was planning on holding a virulently anti-gun town hall meeting Wednesday evening in her district to lambast the new Illinois carry bill.
On deck to support her was the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office.
The plan: frighten her constituents with baseless fear-based demagoguery and emotional tugs on the heartstrings. No doubt blood dancing and bloody shirt waving was on the agenda for little Laura Fine.
The silly little woman was rumored to want to use the event to launch a campaign seek the repeal of Illinois’ new carry bill at the event. Like that’s gonna happen.
Nobody ever accused her of being forward thinking. Unless you count “Forward” in the sense of Barack Obama’s campaign slogan (and the old communist use of the word in their campaign propaganda).
Well, our friends over at the Illinois State Rifle Association sent out a couple of broadcast emails to their members and friends in the past few days.
See, the ISRA, like Guns Save Life, has a reputation of being able to turn out real grassroots support.
Even in GSL’s early days twenty years ago we turned out good crowds when it mattered. In one case, Democrat Laurel Prussing was going to attack Congressman Tom Ewing’s opposition to a scary gun ban at a campaign rally at the Champaign County Courthouse.
We turned out better than sixty people, all carrying home-made signs. Little Laurel saw the crowd as her driver brought her and she didn’t even get out of the car. They drove away.
Well, today Laura Fine did the modern day equivalent. She cancelled her town hall meeting that was to serve as her springboard to attack right-to-carry before a single license was issued.
It’s just another setback for the anti-gun crowd.
Poor ICHV. They are a group holding on to their existence by mere fingertips as grants have dried up. They fired their lobbyist because they couldn’t afford him. They closed their Springfield office to save money. They slashed staff. Their long-time director Thomas Mannard abandoned ship and took a job with cancer non-profit. (Let’s hope he has better luck banning cancer than he had at banning guns.) They spent a ton of their financial reserves this past session to stop right to carry, but it passed anyway.
We’re surprised they didn’t bring that Lee Goodman or whatever his name was from that “Stop Concealed Carry” group.
He’s probably not around because the money train dried up.
That’s to bad about Illinois against handgun violence. What are they going to do now?
I wonder what happened to the “local chapter” of the ICHV they tried to start up. I went to a couple “meetings” to see what they were about and to express my pro-2A point of view (with my GSL t-shirt, or was it IGOLD, on), but they were just re-hashing as much anti-gun propaganda as they could within an hour or so time frame. I did get to debate a little towards the end of the first “meeting” and got a few “jabs” in but the “meeting” was not very well run. The second “meeting” I went to was more or less a “book club” discussion about a book written by an ex prison guard writing about crime annd criminals, pretty much irrelavant to “handgun violence”. Pretty much a waste of my time and participation, as limited as it was.
As a firearm owner and soon-to-be concealed carrier (I hope), I myself am against handgun violence, but wish to be able to protect myself and those around me with whatever means I have available to me at the time, including a handgun, should a thug attempt to use violence against me. The only thing that would deter a bad guy intent on violence or harm to an innocent is a good guy with the means to overpower him. Many times the best weapon for defense is a firearm, especially for someone that is handicapped or not physically able to deter a young thug with criminal intent.
If a bad guy with a gun would attack you, who would you call, a policeman with a gun or the president of your local ICHV who would try to “discuss” the gun away from the thug? I would prefer to have the means to deter the thug from violence at my side, because the policeman with a gun are minutes or longer away if you are lucky, and the thug would pay no more attention to the ICHV president than he would to the laws he is already breaking.
I know who the library security threatened to call when I was taking pictures through a glass wall at one of their meetings… and it wasn’t for the local (or even state) head of the ICHV to come out and discuss things with me.
I can’t recall for sure, but I think I was wearing my fanny pack that day. Poor ICHV… afraid of their own shadows.
I was just inside the door when you got there and I saw you taking pictures John, …the reason they gave for not allowing anyone else inside the meeting was that it was “filled to capacity” even though there were 2 or 3 chairs left empty and “Stretch” was there taking movies of the “public” meeting. That would be an interresting film to review at a gun meeting, think that would be possible?
You wouldn’t believe the circus-like 3rd grade “exercise” that started the “meeting”, …everyone was to arrange themselves around the room in alphabetic order using the first letter of their middle name “communicating” with “sign”, no vocals allowed. Myself and a black woman refused to participate and watched in dis-belief at the childish behavior (at least I did). There was then “discussion” of predatory animals, IIRC, tigers, and their means of stalking their prey, much of which was irrelavent to handgun violence, …supposedly, the rason for the initial start-up meeting of the local “chapter” of ICHV. I was waiting for the discussion of local hangun violence, and finally, the parents of the girl killed by the local “gunman” that went to Northwestern University to shoot up a classroom had their prepared speech about that tragedy, tugging at everyones “emotions” to furthur their agenda, followed up with anti-gun propaganda.
Finally with about 15 minutes left they opened up to “floor discussion”, where I was able to express a few pro-2A “arguements”, but was “talked-over” as they tried to imply they didn’t want to “take away my 2A rights or my firearms”, but they sure wanted to infringe on my rights with more restrictions in the name of “safety” to the community.
All-in-all, it was typical anti-gun rhetoric with few “open-minded” participants, although I did get to give out a couple copies of Gun News to a couple black ladies who said they were interrested in learning how to handle firearms safely, which really surprised me. They seemed sincere and I suggested they take a basic NRA pistol handling class, information for which was in back pages of the Gun News.
The head of the Chicago chapter of ICHV was present and I so much wanted to put him “on the spot” to find out why his “chapter” was so ineffective because of so much “gun violence” in the Chicago area, but the meeting conveniently shut down before I could get around to him, I do think it was purposeful as they didn’t expect any “opposition” to their agenda.
Good job.
As long as these people think with their hearts instead of their brains, they will keep coming back again and again as pawns of those who want to impose more dependance upon government instead of self dependance.
We must stay active to protect our basic civil rights. Self-defense is one of the most basic.
They don’t think with their hearts. That would imply that they cared about others. The problem is, they don’t think. If they thought, they would recognize evidence when it was presented. More Guns = Less Crime. You could look it up. If you thought.
But they don’t.
You are correct, John, they are so immersed in their anti-gun agenda they don’t have to think, just spew the standard “talking points” propaganda that are ingrained in their (feeble) “minds”.
Good job to the people able to turn out and protest!
Glad to hear it fell apart before it started. this commie liberal needs to be voted out. this is why Illinois voters need recall ability like CO has, I would love to see this puckered up skank get ousted in a recall. we can NEVER let up on anyone who wants to take what we have earned.
Over at Capitol Fax, here’s how they headlined the story of ISRA’s email alert:
Grotesque ISRA paranoia has not yet subsided
http://capitolfax.com/2014/01/22/grotesque-isra-paranoia-has-not-yet-subsided/
Extremism in pursuit of liberty is no vice.
John
I was at the Prussing counter-protest. My recollection is that it was 108 of us (the good guys, pro-gun) against 12 of Prussing’s supporters, 8 of which looked to not yet have graduated from the U of I.
I did see her face as she pulled up, took one look, and told her driver to drive on. It was priceless; oh to have a photo of that expression.
Thank you for going and supporting our God Given 2A Right!!!!!